


Wasted Potential

by orphan_account



Series: Homestuck Rarepair Swap 2014 [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Swimming, Black Romance, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You strip off your shirt and pants, watching the gentle ripples of the pool. You'd better win this impromptu race, as unofficial and stupid as it is, because you don't think you can live with the shame of losing to a land dweller, especially not a human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wasted Potential

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doxian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doxian/gifts).



> Thank you to [stunrunner](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stunrunner) for editing.

You strip off your shirt and pants, watching the gentle ripples of the pool. You'd better win this impromptu race, as unofficial and stupid as it is, because you don't think you can live with the shame of losing to a land dweller, especially not a human. You move to toss your clothes at Fef, but she's already walking back towards the gate, making good on her promise to leave if you were actually going to follow through with your _UN-EC-ESSARY!_ challenge. So what if Winter High won’t be officially competing against the Gold High team until next month? You've seen Dirk around for perigees, and you've been itching to actually get into the water with him since the moment you found out he was their team's star swimmer.

Unfortunately for you, you lose by a full second, with Dirk reaching out and grabbing the wall as you were in your last motions of your last lap. Even worse, you don't actually die of shame and get out of your pathetic loser excuse for a life when it happens. Your entire face flushes as you grip the edge of the pool and pull yourself out, the adrenaline of the race still pumping through your veins uselessly. All it does is fuel your rage at yourself and at Dirk.

Sol is standing just a few feet away from the pool, shoving his timer back into his pocket, and you physically bite your lip to keep yourself from snapping at him. You hate that kid (though not in the same way you did a few years ago), and with Fef already peaced out, he got to make the call all on his own. You don't trust him on how long he claims the difference in your times was, given that he's Dirk's teammate, but you can’t argue that Dirk was first. You're not going to look like a sore loser, and you're not going to waste your energy on him. You already did that plenty a sweep and a half ago.

God damn it; why did Fef have to storm off and leave you alone with these two assholes?

“OK, so if that's all you need, I'm leaving,” Sollux says to Dirk, throwing a towel at him.

“Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, Sollux.”

“Whatever. I'm gonna go home and pass the fuck out like a tranquilized bear at the end of a long autumn. It's way too bright to be awake.” He turns heel and stalks away, completely ignoring you.

“Shitty to see you too, Sol,” you can't help but yell after him. His only response is to flip you the finger; he doesn't show any other sign that he even heard you.

“I didn't realize you still had hate feelings for him,” Dirk comments, starting to dry his hair. His biceps flex subtly with each motion and the sight shoots a dart of loathing straight into your blood pusher. He's muscular, a physique that's fairly typical for a troll, but a little more impressive on a human. Meanwhile, your own body is toned as best you can get it but still scrawny for a violetblood.

“Platonic ones,” you correct him with a glare. “Not that I see why it's any of your business. I didn't realize you actually swam rather than just walkin’ around looking pretty in bathing suits like some kind of mascot, given how it messes up your fuckin’ dumb hairdo.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow. “You're surprised that I actually participate, rather than just walking around in skintight swim apparel like a first class doucheprince? You realize about half my school thinks the same about you, right? Of the audience we're gonna draw next month, I'll say a good 60% will be there to settle bets over whether you actually can swim or whether it's part of your 'royalblood' act you're so attached to. Of course, the other 39.9% will only be there for the very serious business of evaluating which of our teams looks better in said skintight swim apparel.”

“That's such bullshit!” you blurt out, cheeks burning. Of course you can swim; what jealous lowbloods are spreading such slander about you?

“Yeah, I know there's 0.1% missing. That's for the few weirdo parents who actually care about their shitty young adults' extracurricular activities and want to cheer us on.”

“No, you moron! That you thought I couldn't actually swim!” You run a hand through your own wet hair. The transition from water to air doesn't bother you at all; you like the way the moisture sticks to you. Besides, it's the summer, and the sun is steadily climbing in the sky, warming the dark tiles around the pool and your drying bodies. Dirk has moved on to drying his body over his wet suit. It's so dumb.

“I never doubted that you could swim. I just doubted that you could swim well, and you haven't disproven that yet.”

“Fuck you; I was only a sliver behind you!” You rip off your goggles and let them fall around your neck. You should go get your glasses, but you don't want to turn your back on this asshole.

“Like I said, you can't swim well. I know I'm fan-fuckin'-tastic for a human and all, but the fact remains swimming is the only sport in which you should have an advantage over me, since you have gills and don't have to worry about the breathing thing like I do, yet you're still losing.”

“It was a fluke! We'll see who's got the advantages when I see you again in four weeks. It doesn't even matter that you beat me now; this was stupid and counts for nothing.”

Dirk pulls off his own goggles, pulling them up to rest on his forehead. It looks almost comical, the dark, impractically shaped lenses resting on his mussed, still-mostly-wet blond hair. He looks you in the eye and you see his pupils are a vivid shade of amber that's almost unseen in either species. Because just like everything else about him, his eyes have to be _special_. It's enough to make you curl your hands into fists and seriously contemplate punching him in the face as he steps closer. Instead, your heart just beats faster, and you find yourself looking very slightly up at him. He's even _taller_ than you and it's not fucking fair.

“Are you just gonna stand there bitching at me all day, or are you gonna let me get home and actually get some sleep?” he asks. He reaches out and runs a hand along one of your horns.

You lean back and slap his hand away. “Hey, you can't just go grabbin' a guy's horns like that!”

“Sorry, I must've misread that; I shouldn't have been so presumptuous.” Dirk pulls his hand back and holds it, open-palmed. His smirk disappears and his brow raises from his cocky, penetrating gaze to a more open, less threatening look.

“No, fuck,” you say quickly, “you didn't misread nothin'.” You reach out and grab his hand before you can think about it too much. You place his hand on your horn again. “You just caught me off guard, and yeah, you should ask before assuming, you ass.”

“Alright, let me try again,” Dirk says. He moves one foot forward, his body now very close to yours. You wonder suddenly if his nails are sharp enough to break skin, and how you'd look with a few oozing lines of violet across your ribs, your naked flesh clawed, blood trickling all the way down to the top line of your swimming trunks. But of course you couldn't return the favor even if he did, since his dumb swimming suit covers him neck down to his ankles, only leaving his arms free. “May I kiss you?”

You blush violently at how direct he is now that you’ve given him the go-ahead.

“Yeah.” He closes the last few inches between you immediately, pressing his lips against yours. You’re struck by how warm they are, even a little bit more so than Sollux’s were, though that was so long ago it’s hard to compare. You’ve read interspecies smut a few times and you always thought the description of humans as hotter than all but the most redblooded trolls was exaggeration, but here’s living, breathing evidence that nope, that’s entirely accurate.

You grip his shoulder, rising to your tiptoes without even thinking about it, so that you’re now a hair above him and you feel more in control. Of course, he does likewise, not breaking the kiss but nipping at your upper lip, his dull teeth barely grazing your flesh in a way that would be impossible for you to return. He grabs your horn with one hand and with the other, places his fingertips on your back. Slowly, he pulls down, enough to sting but nowhere near enough to break flesh. You kiss him harder, your lips parting as you’re desperate for more of him.

Dirk pulls away and you scowl, because you want more and that was nowhere near enough.

“Calm down there, big boy,” he says.

“Holy mackerel, don’t call me that stupid shit,” you interrupt, even as his mouth is open, clearly ready to spew more bullshit. You slap his shoulder with annoyance, pitch burning in your chest. “Why’d you stop?"

“If you hadn’t interrupted me, you would already know. You might actually have a shot of being more than just a spoiled, miserable brat for the rest of your life if you actually listened to people. You’re not vapid like people say you are; you just don’t know when to actually fuckin’ pay attention.”

“I’m vapid?!” you sputter. “You’re the one who dropped outta your school’s robotics team. Obviously, swimming is way better than dumb robots, but you can’t really claim brains over body, now can you?”

And you dislike him for both his brawn and his brains, but you’re not going to draw attention to that. You gasp as he grips your waist tightly with his hand, digging in with his fingernails, sending little black sparks through you.

“I still help the team out, but a man of as many talents as I have can’t stagnate by solely focusing on one extracurricular.” If it’s a bluff - and it must be a bluff, because whose ego is _really_ that big - it’s pulled off smoothly. You grab his shoulders, hands almost slipping on the slick material, because the other option is slapping him in the face. “Besides, if we’re going to talk about wasted potential, we’re going to get dragged right back to your mediocre swimming performance.”

“Mediocre?! I hold my high school’s second place record for the butterfly, you asshole!”

“Oh, your high school’s; how very impressive. For one stroke. You’re a seadweller, you have the perfect genetics for a swimmer, and you’re happy to be stagnating at ‘good’ when you could be great.” Dirk swoops in again, his lips tantalizingly close to yours. “You could be phenomenal.” The way he says it, there’s hatred just dripping from it, emphasizing each syllable angrily, and heat surges in you because _he’s fuckin' right_. He sees your potential, and he’s just beat you, and he wants you to get better, and you suddenly regret every blown-off practice and day spend gorging smoked salmon when you could have been at the gym. Dirk wants you to be more and you don’t want his fucking attitude, because he’s clearly lying - he _could_ have gone further in robotics too so he’s being a fucking hypocrite.

But he kisses you again, deep and unhesitating, before you can say anything back. You lose yourself in the kiss, squeezing his shoulders hard enough to bruise, your bulge slowly twisting within its sheath as arousal rises within you.

Abruptly, you hear the shake of a chain fence and jump back from Dirk like he’s turned poisonous. Looking around wildly, you see two humans with near-identical square glasses and messy black hair standing by the fence. One’s leaning against it and smirking, and the other’s mouth is agape, clearly shocked.

Dirk glances behind him and a subtle flush of pink appears on his cheeks.

“Shit,” he mutters, turning back around and hurrying towards the opposite end of the pool to grab his stuff. “As I was trying to say, this isn’t a good place for mackin’ it. Other people actually come to use the pool, since most humans are on the diurnal schedule.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me that!” you reply, following him.

“I was going to, but you were too busy pouting to let me.”

“No, I wasn’t! You were too busy snarking at me to say anything useful.”

“Speaking of anything actually useful, are you going to follow me like a stoner running after a grubdog truck, or are you gonna pick up your stuff?”

Your clothes and bag are unfortunately near the new humans, and the last thing you want is to interact with them. Dirk hurriedly pulls on his pants and shirt over his suit, and shoves his feet into his sneakers without untying them, though at least he puts on socks first.

“Or you could just leave it there, it’s up to you,” he says. “I’ll see you at the meet. I hope you actually get serious before then.”

“Fuck you,” you snap, hands balling into fists once more. Dirk glances over at the newcomers again. He looks back to you, brow lowered and a hint of determination in his eyes. Suddenly, he presses his lips to yours again for one far-too-short moment, and then pulls away, grabs his bag, and walks off.

**Author's Note:**

> While there wasn't an appropriate time to mention it in the actual fic, I purposefully gave Dirk a swimsuit that covers his top half since I was writing with a trans male Dirk in mind.
> 
> Based on the following prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> _General feelings: I think these two share a lot of the same faults, and I think that they both feel negatively enough towards themselves that they would meet, recognize how similar they are, and hate each other immediately._
> 
>  
> 
> _Fill ideas: For these two I'd love to see something that focuses on blackrom as a *rivalry* - being competitive and contentious, and seeing the unused potential in the other person and feeling disappointed that they aren't being better, and wanting to make them become better. Also the feeling of "wow you *suck*, you're such an awful person, but YOU'RE SO ATTRACTIVE why do I feel so drawn to you???". So anything where they're directly competing would be great. (Something involving water would be awesome. Mermaidstuck maybe? Don't feel the need to go with that though.) Feel free to be silly and not very serious with this one. A mostly-canon AU where they meet somehow works as well as total AU._
> 
>  
> 
> _Quadrants preferred: BLACK AS TAR PLEASE. Or I'd be fine with one-sided red or pale on Eridan's side that maybe flips black later._
> 
> If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more about me and my writing at [gendersquare.tumblr.com](http://gendersquare.tumblr.com).


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